Developing speaking and listening skills for intermediate ESL students

Lesson Plan for Teaching Speaking and Listening Skills to Intermediate-Level English as Second Language Students

Anyone who has ever tried to learn a foreign language can readily testify to the challenges that are involved in gaining fluency and proficiency. As the demand for effective English as a second language (ESL) instruction continues to increase, it has become more important than ever to develop lesson plans that provide ESL students with the practice they need to achieve such fluency and proficiency. Although all ESL learners are unique, they all share some common needs in terms of learning how to speak English properly, of course, but it is also important to help them learn how to listen as well. To this end, this paper provides a review of the relevant peer-reviewed, academic and scholarly literature concerning the importance of speaking and listening needs of ESL students, followed by a sample lesson plan that can be used for this purpose. A summary of the research and important findings are presented in the conclusion.

Review and Discussion

Although all ESL students will bring different levels of fluency to the classroom, it is reasonable to suggest that most are not as fluent as they need to be in order to successfully navigate their way through other classes and mainstream society where a wide range of jargon, slang and colloquialisms are commonly used. This suggestion is congruent with Guhde (2003) who notes, "ESL students are students whose primary language at home is not standard English, and therefore, may not be fluent in standard English" (p. 113). Both speaking and listening skills are essential elements in the ESL classroom, but oral participation has typically received far more attention from foreign language learning researchers and educators. For example, according to Tsou (2005), "In general, student participation includes many forms of student actions such as speaking, listening, reading, writing, and body language or physical movement" (p. 46).

Because oral participation represents behavior that is most frequently observed by ESL teachers, much of the research in ESL has been concentrated on the importance of oral participation by students (Tsou, 2005). As a result, more attention has been given to speaking than listening skills (Tsou, 2005). This emphasis on speaking by ESL students, though, tends to ignore the importance of good listening skills for these young learners as well. In this regard, Kasper (2000) points out that, "Understanding spoken English is essential in every academic subject. As they talk, professors transmit content-area information, teach the jargon and discourse style appropriate to the discipline, and provide instructions for successful completion of the course" (p. 78).

Good listening skills are also important for ESL students in other academic settings as well, including viewing video presentations and films, attendance at guest lectures, as well as simply listening to their peers in class (Kasper, 2000). Likewise, Huang (2006) emphasizes that, Research with ESL students has begun to show that students experience particular challenges in English academic listening" (p. 385). Although listening and speaking skills are important in all ESL contexts, they are particularly important for academic settings. In this regard, Huang adds that, "Academic listening/speaking tasks are growing more complex and difficult for ESL students and they require more than the traditional note-taking and formal speaking skills. They are expected to actively participate in the listening/speaking activities in modern classrooms" (p. 386). Therefore, helping ESL students improve their listening and well as speaking proficiency are important elements in the overall ESL curriculum.

To this end, it is also important to have a structured lesson plan available to help guide the ESL teacher in delivering these instructions in a thoughtful and meaningful way. According to Ferris and Hedgcock (1998), "A lesson plan can take many forms depending on the time constraints and personal style of the individual teacher. Regardless of what it looks like, a lesson plan provides the teacher with a script for presenting materials, interacting with students, and leading students through structured and unstructured activities" (p. 70). The lesson plan outlined below therefore incorporates both structured and unstructured activities to promote listening and speaking skills.

[Possible show of hands.]

"For those of you who do not know about the Beatles, they were a major rock and roll band that recorded dozens and dozens of hit songs during the 1960s and 1970s. These songs were about many things, some of them were serious and some were not so serious. One song that was not serious at all but was just for fun was "Yellow Submarine," which was recorded in 1966 and sung by the band's drummer, Ringo Starr, who also sang many of the Beatles' other fun songs. The Beatles even made a movie about the submarine. The song is about a man who loved the sea and spent his life aboard a submarine. When he came back home, he told his friends about his life on the submarine and this made them want to do the same thing."

[Teacher shows picture of a normal submarine as well the "Yellow Submarine" on an overhead projector or, if not available, these can be distributed as handouts.]

"This is a picture of a typical submarine in use today. I'm sure you have all seen these kinds of boats before."

[Teacher shows first picture of normal submarine shown in Figure 1 below.]

Figure 1. Picture of typical normal submarine.

Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Virginia_class_submarine.jpg

"The word 'submarine' is based on the prefix 'sub' which means 'beneath' and suffix 'marine' which means water, so the word 'submarine' means a boat that can travel beneath the water, but they can also travel on the surface of the water when they want to as well. Now, here's a picture of the Beatle's 'Yellow Submarine.' Ringo Starr, who sang this song, is the third one down on the left."

[Teacher shows picture of the "Yellow Submarine" shown in Figure 2 below and points to Ringo.]

Figure 2. Graphic of the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine"

Source: http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:6T0rJhMLOo_qnM:http://www.freakingnews.com/pictures/58000/Yellow-Submarine -- 58436.jpg&t=1

"You can tell right away that this is not a boat that anyone would really want to ride in, but a lot of people enjoyed the song the Beatles wrote about it. Now we'll listen to the song while you listen for the words that are missing on your worksheets. Listen carefully and try to pick out the missing words as the song is played. We'll play the song two or three times until everyone fills in all of the blanks on their worksheets."

2.

Presentation.

[the presentation component of the intermediate ESL listening and speaking lesson plan consists of playing an audio recording (vinyl record, cassette, CD, DVD, etc.) of the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" two or three times. During this series of presentations, the students are instructed to carefully listen for the words that are missing on their worksheets and to fill these blanks in when they hear the words mentioned in the song. After the first presentation, the teacher will use the following commentary.]

"How are you doing? Has everyone filled in all of the blanks on their worksheets?"

[if not, teacher plays song a second time.]

"Has everyone found all of the missing words now?"

[if yes, skip to read-along segment of the lesson plan under Practice below; if no, teacher plays song for a third time.]

3.

Practice.

[After the third playing of the recording, students will be queried to determine if everyone has completed their worksheets completely using the sample instructions outlined below.]

"Has everyone finished filling in all of the blanks on their worksheets?"

[Students with missing words will be advised of the correct lyrical entries.]

[the song is then played again at which time the students read along with the song following the teacher's guidance as follows.]

"I'll play the song again, only this time I want you to read along with the song from your worksheets. Try to keep up with the song."

[the song is played a final time at which point the students are encouraged to sing along following the lyrics on their completed worksheets.]

"Now we'll all have some fun. I'm going to play the song one more time but this time, we will all sing along following the words on your worksheets."

[Teacher plays "Yellow Submarine" a final time and leads the entire class in a boisterous sing-along. When the sing-along is finished, the teacher will conclude with the following commentary.]

"That WAS fun! You can see why so many people liked this song and still enjoy today."

4.

Feedback.

[Following these presentations, the students are provided with the opportunity to compare their answers and to discuss what they heard (Tunnell, 2007). The teacher will direct the feedback segment of the lesson plan using the commentary provided below]

"Now I want you to form groups of three or four students each and compare your worksheets with the other students. See if everyone heard the same word and what words took the longest for you and the others to understand."

[Students break up into small groups and compare answers and discuss any problems they had in discerning the missing words on their worksheets. The teacher will then lead a discussion concerning the song and its context as follows]

"What were some of the words that were hard for some of you to understand?"

[Teacher fields responses.]

"Did everyone fill in their blanks with the same words?"

[Teacher asks what substitute words were used in place of the actual lyrics.]

"What were some of the words that you heard that were different from the real lyrics?"

[Teacher fields responses and conducts follow-up using commentary below.]

"Now let's discuss what this song was about and where it might be played and who might like listening to it."

[Following the guidance provided by Tunnell (2007), when the meaning of the song has been made clear and comparisons have been made concerning which words were the most difficult to discern and what substitute words were used by the students in place of the actual lyrics, the students will be asked questions such as the following to help improve their understanding and comprehension skills.]

1. "What is this song about?"

2. "Is this a happy song or a sad song"

3. "What kind of similes/metaphors do you hear?"

4. "Would you play this at your wedding?"

5. "Did you enjoy this song?"

6. "What kind of people do you think would enjoy this song?" (Tunnell, 2007, para. 2).

[Depending on the answers to these questions, the students can be asked relevant follow-up questions that can fuel further areas of discussion if there is time remaining.]

Conclusion

The research showed that speaking and listening skills are both essential elements in helping intermediate ESL students gain proficiency and fluency. The research also showed that there are a number of approaches that can be used for this purpose, but one popular approach is to use songs recorded by the Beatles, including the whimsical recording, "Yellow Submarine." By using popular music such as "Yellow Submarine" that contains clearly articulated lyrics, intermediate ESL students will likely enjoy the learning opportunity more than using a prerecorded lecture or readings from a book. Moreover, the several presentations of the song will help them hone their listening skills and the lyric reading and sing-along will help them improve their speaking skills in the process.